{"id":10802,"date":"2013-11-12T00:07:02","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T05:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/?p=10802"},"modified":"2013-12-21T10:58:30","modified_gmt":"2013-12-21T15:58:30","slug":"educators-policy-creators-and-history-makers-come-together-for-a-conference-seeking-integration-within-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/2013\/11\/12\/educators-policy-creators-and-history-makers-come-together-for-a-conference-seeking-integration-within-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Educators, Policy Creators and History Makers Come Together for a Conference Seeking Integration Within Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Last weekend, educators, policy creators, and history makers gathered for the, \u201cWhere Integration Meets Innovation\u201d conference, organized by One Nation Indivisible, and in collaboration with the Sheff Movement Coalition. The conference was a two-day event, hoping to bring public attention to, \u201ccreating, sustaining and improving dynamic and diverse public schools for the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century.\u00a0[1]<\/a>\u201d Friday afternoon\u2019s events included a luncheon and panel discussion, utilizing space at the Hartford Public Library, and Saturday morning\u2019s events incorporated a diverse number of speeches at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. Both of these events shed light on the paradigm of school reform, specifically in relation to the Sheff movement and its goals. Friday\u2019s panel included Attorneys for the Plaintiff\u2019s in Sheff v. O\u2019Neill, such as Martha Stone, Dennis Parker and Alex Knopp, Columbia University Professor Amy Stuart Wells, and Senior Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices For Children and Hartford Board of Education member Robert Cotto. Elizabeth Horton Sheff, lead plaintiff for the Sheff movement withstanding 24 years, addressed both Friday and Saturday\u2019s attendees, calling attention to the irony within the \u201chollow victories\u201d in which the government stakes it\u2019s claims for acute and active school reform. For example, the ideology of an idealized \u201cSheff school choice\u201d versus the currently implemented \u201cschool choice\u201d within Hartford and its surrounding suburbs was debated. \u201cMagnet schools with high achievement rates, do not mean integrated,\u201d noted Knopp, a Yale Law School graduate. Open choice is a program that offers suburban kids the opportunity to attend urban schools, and vice versa; it is a process which is intended to create more integrated schools and bridge achievement gaps between white and minority students. However, Knopp pointed to the differences between schools under school choice which have higher achievement levels, and schools under the choice program that have higher achievement levels\u00a0and an integrated learning environment.\u00a0<\/i>The topic provoked further questions offered up by Knopp, such as, \u201cto what extent should open choice be mandated for suburb schools to give seats to urban schools?\u201d These topics spiraled into questions of locational poverty amongst the city, racial steering and redlining practices, as well as projections on how to connect integrated schools with integrated housing, all of which the panel members addressed from their point of expertise.<\/p>\n

In contrast with Friday\u2019s panel discussion, the opening remarks on Saturday morning were not intended to educate the public on Sheff goals or how the current education system is failing its students. Saturday\u2019s goal was to ignite a spark within the conferences attendees, a spark that had the potential to create actual change within the system. \u201cWe are spending too much time talking, and not enough time taking action,\u201d preached Bruce Douglas, the Executive Director of the Capital Region Education Council. He continued, \u201cThere is more poverty and family dysfunction within schools now than ever,\u201d and concluded that, \u201cEducation is in a state of emergency, and it must be addressed with a sense of urgency.\u201d But the goal of his sermon, as others that Saturday morning, were not to convince people to get up out of their seats and take action. Most of the people at the conference were those who had already taken action, and were already \u201cheroes\u201d in the fight for a better education system. \u201cThat\u2019s the problem with these conferences,\u201d Douglas professed. \u201cI am not talking to try and convert you\u2026.I am already talking to the converted.\u201d The tone of Saturday\u2019s conference was less informative about the issues, but moreover the beginnings of an instruction manual, on how to bring the information to the public and encourage others to take action. Because talking the talk is one thing, but walking the walk takes guts.<\/p>\n

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\"Conference,<\/a>
Friday Panel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"IMG_2158\"<\/a>
Saturday’s Conference<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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[1]<\/a> Where Integration Meets Innovation, Conference Agenda Packet<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Last weekend, educators, policy creators, and history makers gathered for the, \u201cWhere Integration Meets Innovation\u201d conference, organized by One Nation Indivisible, and in collaboration with the Sheff Movement Coalition. The conference was a two-day event, hoping to bring public attention to, \u201ccreating, sustaining and improving dynamic and diverse public schools for the 21st\u00a0century.\u00a0[1]\u201d Friday … Continue reading Educators, Policy Creators and History Makers Come Together for a Conference Seeking Integration Within Education<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":520,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/520"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10802"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10804,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802\/revisions\/10804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}